Russian exiled opposition urges voters to polling stations at noon on main Duma election day

Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin and several other exiled opposition figures are promoting a campaign called "Noon for a Peaceful Russia," urging Russians to come to polling stations at exactly noon on September 20 — the third and main day of the State Duma elections. The idea is to give citizens a legal way to signal opposition to the war.

Actor Nikita Kukushkin, who has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and left the country, recorded a video titled "I Am War" to support the campaign. Yashin and Kukushkin published it on their social media on September 18, the first day of voting.

The video's message

Dressed entirely in black, Kukushkin speaks as the voice of war itself, urging viewers to do nothing — not protest, not follow the news, not support those suffering from the war, and to keep living as if nothing were happening around them. By the end of the video, a tear rolls down his cheek as his expression twists into a sinister smile.

The video pays homage to a 1971 American public service ad against the Vietnam War, in which actor Henry Fonda delivered a similar monologue. That original campaign, called "Help Unsell the War," was launched after Yale student Ira Nerken recruited hundreds of advertising professionals to work for free, producing 125 posters and more than 60 ads that ran on local U.S. television and radio stations, though major networks refused to air them.

At the time, Time magazine described the campaign as an inventive but somewhat belated form of antiwar protest, since by 1971 most Americans already opposed the Vietnam War. The U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam in 1973, eight years after entering the conflict. The "Help Unsell the War" campaign has recently resurfaced and drawn renewed attention on social media.